Media Agoras: Democracy, Diversity, and Communication is a collection of essays presenting some of the most up-to-date perspectives on the study of the role media play in the construction of a more inclusive and respectful society. From theoretical debates on the role played by media in fostering participatory practices in the public sphere to more empirically based analyses of the media policy, production, content, and reception in relation to democratic possiblities and diversity, this book presents a critical overview of such crucial debates in contemporary European societies.

Live Digital Theatre explores the experiences of Interdisciplinary Performing Arts practitioners working on digital performance and in particular live digital theatre. Collaborating with world-leading practitioners – Kolectiv Theatre (UK), Teatro Os Satyros (Brazil), and The Red Curtain International (India)- this study investigates the ways to bring live digital performance into theatre training and performance making. The idea of Interdisciplinary Performative Pedagogies is placed within the context of the exploration of live digital theatre and is used to understand creative practices and how one can learn from these practices. The book presents a pedagogical approach to contemporary practices in digital performance; from interdisciplinary live performance using digital technology, to live Zoom theatre, YouTube, mixed media recorded and live performance. The book also combines a series of case studies and pedagogical practices on live digital performance and intermedial theatre. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars in performing arts, digital arts, media, and gaming.

Analyzes efforts made by communities and policy makers around the world to push beyond conventional approaches to environmental decision making. Breaking Boundaries analyzes efforts made by communities and policy makers around the world to push beyond conventional approaches to environmental decision making to enhance public acceptance, sustainability, and the impact of those decisions in local contexts. The current political climate has generated uncertainty among citizens, industry interests, scientists, and other stakeholders, but by applying concepts from various perspectives of environmental communication and deliberative democracy, this book offers a series of lessons learned for both public officials and concerned citizens. The contributors offer a broader understanding of how individuals and groups can get involved effectively in environmental decisions through traditional formats as well as alternative approaches ranging from leadership capacity building to social media activity to civic technology.

In the mid-1980s, Neil Postman claimed that television made entertainment the natural format for the representation of all experience. While Postman’s argument still is pertinent to a description of contemporary television shows, it also seems increasingly more accurate to argue that “reality-based” entertainment is quickly becoming the referential format for televisual representations of our experience in the 21st century. Chapters in this edited volume explore reality television’s place within contemporary media landscape in terms of its potential for political engagement. The authors engage with a variety of issues such as politics of authenticity and performance, audience reception of political issues, ethics and media regulation, politics of self-presentation, modernity, and collective identity. The diversity of perspectives and issues presented in this book cautions readers both against quickly dismissing reality television’s potential as a platform for political discourse and against subscribing to the celebratory rhetoric regarding the democratic potential of reality television. Reel Politics: Reality Television as a Platform for Political Discourse furthers our understanding of the semiotic openness of the reality text and the variations in social, cultural and political contexts across which the reality television genre formulas migrate.

In the current postmodern reality where society is no longer viewed as a totality but as a collection of individual interests, public space both as a physical and symbolic space, has no determined contours and the public sphere is likely to take new forms. Yet as a crucial principle of democracy, public space will continue to feed discussions as long as models of participatory democracy represent the guarantor of good governance and the preservation of the public good. Ranging from architecture, sociology, to literary criticism and women and gender studies, the essays that compose this collection have as a common denominator the idea of public space as a vital aspect of public life in modern as well as in developing and traditional societies. Placing themselves beyond the relentless theoretical debates around the concept of public space, the authors agree that no matter what forms it takes, public space remains a fundamental aspect of even those societies that until recently were viewed as hermetically sealed. What emerges from the different perspectives included in this book is a general consensus that the symbolic value of the physical public space is grounded in the collective socio-political consciousness as the basis for a general sense of civic action.

The book World Wide Agora based on quotations and citations connected, from a myriad of sources, cultures, disciplines, eras and areas. A grand debate, like in a virtual Athens's Agora where old and hot issues are discussed, sometimes also in a dramatically, cynical, sarcastic and humoristic ways and from which a collage was created - a portrait of mankind. The book describes in an innovative way, myth and reality, the struggle of mankind towards progress; the mechanisms, the forces, the hurdles and dangers. Will humanity reach its goal to grasp the ultimate stage of knowledge? Or at least a stage that ensures mankind survival? Or will we collapse before that. Those questions and thoughts emerge from all those bits and pieces synthesized into one whole, taking into consideration the individualâs and societyâs points of view (in micro and macro levels.)

Based on a 12-year long project, this book demonstrates the contested character of the communicative construction of Europe. It does so by combining an investigation of journalistic practices with content analysis of print media, an examination of citizens' online interactions and audience studies with European citizens.